The co-founders of Brex, Pedro Franceschi and Henrique Dubugras.
Brex
Capital one announced Thursday the acquisition of start-up Brex for $5.15 billion, the latest dramatic deal by CEO Richard Fairbank.
The company, which disclosed the deal in its fourth-quarter earnings report, said it would pay 50% in cash and 50% in stock for Brex.
The bank’s shares fell about 4%.
Under Fairbank, one of the few founder-CEOs of a major U.S. bank, Capital One last year acquired rival card company Discover Financial for about $35 billion. The deal was Fairbank’s crowning achievement, giving the credit card lender access to one of the only payments networks of any scale.
“Since our founding, we have set out to build a payments company on the frontier of the technological revolution,” Fairbank said in a statement. “The acquisition of Brex accelerates this journey, particularly in the business payments market.”
Fairbank said Brex pioneered the combination of corporate cards, banking services and expense management software: “They took the rarest journey for a fintech, building a vertically integrated platform from the bottom of the technology stack to the top,” he said.
This story is developing. Please check again for updates.